Tweetie for Mac is one of the most popular desktop clients for the Mac, even if version 2.0 still has to show up and the app hasn’t been updated to support Twitter’s latest functionalities such as retweets, lists, real-time streaming. As I said, though, Tweetie for Mac still manages to be one of the most used apps by Mac users.

Developer Nick Paulson, feeling the need of native retweets in Tweetie for Mac and tired of seeing the old “RT @” or “(via @) being used by the app, wrote a plugin that adds Twitter’s native retweet functionality to Tweetie for Mac. It’s called ReTweetie, and it’s available here.

To install ReTweetie, make sure that SIMBL is installed on your OS X machine. You can go download SIMBL for free here. Once SIMBL is running correctly, download the ReTweetie bundle, extract it and place the file in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins or ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins if you want to install it for all user or just your account, respectively. Restart Tweetie for Mac.

Now, nothing will change in the app. But try to hit “Repost” as usual and you’ll see that no tweet compose box will show up. Visit Twitter.com, and you’ll notice a native retweet in your account.

Many will be disappointed by the fact that this is a SIMBL plugin that forces the app to have a functionality it doesn’t come with by default. In my tests, though, I’ve found ReTweetie to be reliable and fast. Recommended, until Tweetie 2 for Mac shows up.